This plan of operations brought the Romans into great straits. The causeway of piles was interrupted in many places, and the forty cohorts which Cæcina led over the slippery ground, hemmed in by impassable ravines and morasses, surrounded by the Germans and distraught by constant attacks, were in danger of succumbing to the fate of Varus. Exhausted and covered with wounds in the unequal struggle by day, they were alarmed and terrified at night by the wild war songs of the enemy encamped on the higher ground; imagination presented to their overwrought minds the hideous images of death which they had seen in the Teutoburg forest. In his dreams Cæcina saw the bloody figure of Quintilius Varus rise from the marsh and beckon him. They had lost their baggage in two days of fruitless fighting, and with exhausted strength saw certain destruction staring them in the face. Then the Germans in the insolence of triumph and the wary Cæcina in his superior military skill wrought them an unexpected deliverance. A premature assault upon the hostile camp, attempted by the Germans against the advice of Arminius and at the instigation of Inguiomer, was driven back by a sudden charge of the Romans. Inguiomer left the field severely wounded and the Germans withdrew into the mountains in disorder, pursued by the enemy. Cæcina then led his legions rapidly to the Rhine. But rumours of disaster had outstripped them; men believed that the army was already annihilated, and in imagination saw the enemy rushing upon themselves. They were in the act of making preparations to destroy the bridges about Vetera when Agrippina hurried thither and prevented the cowardly deed. And when the army arrived this heroic woman, standing like a general at the head of the bridge, welcomed it with friendly greetings, nursed the wounded, and bestowed gifts on those who had been plundered. [Illustration: A ROMAN EMPEROR (After De Montfaucon)] Germanicus arrived soon after with his troops, likewise preceded by rumours of disaster. And in truth they too had passed through great dangers. Owing to the shallowness of the water only two legions could be put on board; the legate Vitellius was to lead the rest along the margin of the sea. But this latter body was overtaken by the tide, which rose breast-high around the soldiers and put an end to all order; waves and eddies carried men and beasts away; draught cattle, baggage, and corpses drifted hither and thither in the water. They escaped destruction narrowly and with heavy loss. Germanicus and Agrippina exerted themselves to the utmost to make them forget their sorrows and hardships by condescension and kindly encouragement, by attention and rewards; and Gaul, Spain, and Italy vied with one another in the effort to make good their losses in arms, horses, and money.